Shadow war with red lines and no rules
Ukraine’s ‘victory’ proposal disguises an urgent, last-ditch appeal to the West
While we here in the United States have had the luxury of not thinking about the war Russia started when it invaded Ukraine more than two years ago — and to be fair to us, October 7, Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza and the new front opening up in the north against Hezbollah, and of course the high-stakes clown-car fire that is the presidential election here have drawn our attention — the war in Ukraine, and now in Russia, hasn’t stopped.
And now, our analyst, Alexander Smukler of Montclair, tells us, it might be reaching a turning point.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Jewish lawyer and onetime entertainment mogul who has steered his country through the war so far, in the face of enormous challenges, against an enemy with far more resources, is in the United States. He addressed the United Nation’s General Assembly on Wednesday.
“He is presenting his so-called victory plan,” Mr. Smukler said. “We won’t know all the details, but several major media sources already are talking about several of its key points.
“I want to emphasize that this is not a peace plan. It is a victory plan, and that changes the whole ballgame.”
“This plan is to continue the war until Ukraine either defeats Russia on the battlefield and wins the war outright, or Russia somehow will have to sign a peace treaty with Ukraine that Ukraine can consider a victory.”
This push for victory comes as exhausted Ukrainians push off what seems likely to become undeniable defeat. But Zelensky doesn’t see it that way, or at least he doesn’t play it that way.
“We see that the Ukrainians are not speaking about peace because they probably have exhausted their efforts to find a peaceful solution,” Mr. Smukler said. “The Ukrainians and the Russians have completely different solutions. Putin wants to fix the front line in Ukraine as it is now, which would give Russia four regions of Ukraine, approximately 22 to 26 percent of the country.” Ukraine has declined to participate in such a proposal, he reported.
“So today, for the first time, Ukrainians are not speaking about forcing Russia to sign a peace treaty, using diplomatic or economic or even military pressure. Now, instead, it is coming up with a plan that, according to sources, will lead Ukraine to a full victory in the war.”
How is that possible? Hold that question, Mr. Smukler said.
The plan consists of four points, all strongly connected and dependent on each other, he explained; we won’t know the details until after Zelensky meets with President Biden during this visit to the United States and presents it to him.
“The first point is that the Western countries and allies will grant Ukraine permission to use long-range missiles and artillery to hit Russian military targets deep inside Russian territory. That means that they will have the green light to decide what to do, without having to ask permission every time.
“The second point is that the war has to be transferred deep inside Russian territory. Right now, Ukraine controls almost 350 square kilometers of Russian territory, because they broke through the Russian border about a month ago, and they’ve defended it successfully ever since. The Russians haven’t been able to push them out.
“So Ukraine wants to extend the platsdarm” — that is, the bridgehead, the position an army, in this case, Ukraine’s, — has secured in enemy — that is, Russian — territory, and from which it can launch attacks — “and move the center of gravity from Donbas,” a Ukrainian oblast the Russians now occupy — “to inside Russian territory. They want to extend the front line by taking more Russian territory under Ukrainian control.
“The third point of the plan is that the Western allies will grant Ukraine the same security guarantee that Israel, for example, has with the United States. That means that if the Ukrainian army will not be able to defeat Russia, NATO has to come to Ukraine to protect it.
“The fourth point is that after the first three are fulfilled, all the countries that are considered Ukrainian allies have to use every diplomatic effort to diminish the influence of Russia and its allies. They have to exert real diplomatic, economic, and political pressure on Russia; this pressure has to be increased tremendously from what has been applied until now.
“In other words, Zelensky’s victory plan means that every country that is considered part of the Western civilized world has to coordinate and increase its efforts.” That means that such countries as Hungary, Serbia, and Slovenia, which are “sabotaging every EU decision to help Ukraine,” must stop. “Zelensky wants Turkey to increase its efforts to help Ukraine, instead of sitting on two chairs as it supports Russia and the Russian president at the same time that it is a member of NATO. He wants the European leaders to unify their policy toward Russia and diminish the influence of the countries that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia.”
The plan sounds hopeful — it’s called a victory plan! — but “the way I read it, it is a reflection of the worsening situation in Ukraine,” Mr. Smukler said. “It is deteriorating every day.”
Until now, Zelensky had offered a peace plan, using diplomacy. “I called it the shadow war. It wasn’t on the physical battlefield, but he was trying to deal with allies and enemies on the diplomatic battlefield.
“Now the Ukrainians are sending a message to the civilized world, saying that ‘We are losing. If you want us to win, you have to do steps 1,2,3,4. Otherwise, we will be defeated in the nearest future, and Putin will win the war.’
“I see the victory plan as an ultimatum that Zelensky will present to President Biden and also to both presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.”
Mr. Smukler detailed the terms of the ultimatum, which is based on the situation’s underlying truths.
“You already spent billions of dollars on us,” he said that Zelensky’s not-quite-spoken-aloud message will be. “You trained us. We demonstrated enormous heroism on the battlefield. But now we’re bleeding and exhausted, because we do not have enough manpower.’
“That is why he wants NATO on the ground, in point 2,” Mr. Smukler said, reverting to his own voice. “He needs the soldiers. He is also telling those who had supplied Ukraine with military equipment that they did not provide enough for them to sustain themselves on the front line.” Not only could Ukraine not go on the offensive, but “we don’t even have enough weaponry for defensive operations.” Ukraine’s inability to conduct the counteroffensive it had planned “was demonstrated last year, when we started, but we did not have enough long-range and medium-range missiles, and we didn’t have the permission to hit Russian targets.
“Our hands have been tied. We cannot win in this situation.”
Then there is Point 4, the one that asks the West to step up pressure on Russia and its allies. “In the last three years, the world has seen Russia increasing its drone production and improving its military machine, and it’s getting an incredible supply of artillery shells from North Korea and Iran.
“So Zelensky is saying that those sanctions didn’t work. ‘We are exhausting our ability to push Russia out of our territories, to defend ourselves. Soon, Russians will break through the front lines, and we’ll be back to March 2021, when they almost took Kyiv.’
“So we are coming to the most critical moment in the conflict, because now Zelensky is using the language of ultimatum with his Western allies.
“He is saying that if you will not give us what we are asking for, we will lose the war. Putin will dictate the conditions of peace, and he will continue to be a threat to Europe, and particularly to neighboring countries.
“I think that Moldova is now in the most danger. It is not a member of NATO. It has no army. It is tiny. It is absolutely defenseless.”
Returning to Zelensky’s plan, “in between the lines, I am reading that Ukraine is basically screaming SOS. Save Our Souls. We cannot defend ourselves.”
Now, Mr. Smukler said, the war in Ukraine is once again, and perhaps more than before, intersecting with American politics. “As we know, our president is leaving office, and we don’t know who the next president will be. The two candidates have completely opposite views of the situation in Ukraine.”
At their debate two weeks ago, Ms. Harris has expressed support for Ukraine while Mr. Trump equivocated, saying that he is in favor of a peace plan. His support for Vladimir Putin and dislike for Volodymyr Zelensky has been evident for years. That is why, for Mr. Zelensky, “this is the last chance to convince Mr. Biden to adopt the victory plan and to start implementing it before he leaves office in January,” Mr. Smukler said. “Zelensky is begging Biden to give Ukraine permission to use long-range missiles deep inside Russian territory.
“The British government already said that it is ready to grant permission for that, but only if the White House will give permission too.
“But the White House is very reluctant.
“Zelensky is a smart politician. He understands that the plan, which eventually will lead to an enormous escalation in the war, is hugely risky. But Zelensky thinks that Biden may agree because he is leaving office, and the responsibility will be on the next president.
“Let’s imagine that Biden accepts the plan, and Trump wins the election. Then Ukraine will have only three to four months to start hitting targets inside Russia. It would be harder for Trump to stop the war then, once he’s in office.
“If nothing has changed when Trump takes office, Ukraine will be so exhausted and demoralized that he could stop the war easily.
“If, on the other hand, Biden adopts the plan and Harris wins, that will give Ukraine another boost and the plan will continue to be implemented. Biden will not be responsible for whatever happens next, because he will have retired.
“Zelensky thinks that Harris has balls and will continue to implement that plan,” Mr. Smukler said.
During the last few months, the Ukrainians have been preparing for this moment, he explained. The timing of the U.N.’s General Assembly, just a few weeks before the U.S. election, means that the electorate’s attention will be elsewhere. “Zelensky understands that if he gets permission from Biden now, no one will pay attention to the risk.”
But the risks inherent in the plan are massive, Mr. Smukler said. “With all my respect for Ukrainian heroism, I think that this is deeply dangerous, because it could mean that NATO and the United States could become involved in a third world war.”
Why?
“Just a week ago, Putin gave an interview in Moscow that was widely publicized,” Mr. Smukler said. It was based on Zelensky’s plan, and Putin told his interviewer that “if Zelensky will be granted permission to hit targets inside Russian territory, and if he implements that plan, using long- and middle-range missile made by Western allies, we will immediately consider that as an act of war, and we will act accordingly.
“Basically, Putin said that this is the last red line, and if it is crossed, I am not telling you what we will do and how we will react, but from that moment, legally and militarily we will consider that we are at war against NATO, the European Union, and the United States. He was saying that it would give him the freedom to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and against NATO members.
To be clear, implying the threat doesn’t mean that it will be deployed, Mr. Smukler said. “I am not convinced that Putin will start a nuclear conflict.” He has threatened such a conflict many times, and it hasn’t happened. “Predicting what Putin will do is pure speculation.”
Still, “I do admit that if Zelensky’s plan is implemented, the conflict will move to an entirely different level and create an escalation that could trigger a third world war. We need to understand that.”
Despite the problems inside Ukraine, Zelensky gamed his moves in Russia cleverly, Mr. Smukler said. It’s now clear that “the Ukrainians have been preparing for Zelensky’s plan for the last few months.” That’s what they were doing when “they broke through the Russian border with well-trained military brigades. They basically moved the war from Ukrainian to Russian territory. Now I understand why they did it. They wanted to demonstrate what they could do to world leaders.”
The Ukrainians were saying, “Look at what we can do. We can hold Russian territory, because the Russians are very weak. They cannot defeat Ukrainians on their own territory.”
And that’s because the Russians, like the Ukrainians, are suffering from a “major deficit in manpower,” Mr. Smukler said. “Putin is still reluctant to announce mobilization, and the Ukrainian plan will create the condition where Putin has no choice but to do that. Hopefully, that will ignite internal resistance to Putin inside Russia.” (It’s been fear of that resistance that has kept Putin from drafting more young men, especially from urban areas.)
Putin has been enlarging his military, though. “Last week, he signed a new decree expanding the Russian army to 1.5 million people,” Mr. Smukler said. “This makes it the second largest army in the world, after China. And Russia increased its military expenses. It’s now officially spending 9 percent of its GDP for military uses. And this is the official figure — most experts think that the number is really twice that, so they think Russia is spending almost 18 percent of its GDP on direct and indirect military expenses.
“Compare that to the Cold War, when Russia spent 13 percent of its GDP on deense. After disarmament, in the 1990s, Russia spent 3 percent of its GDP. This is a huge increase. Russia is militarizing its economy.”
That’s a serious problem.
“When a country chooses that path, when it takes on that huge burden of military expenses, it would take years and years to change it. You can’t just stop the machine that is the economy, because so many people will become involved in the military industry. And Putin’s Russia is choosing that path.
“Western leaders are saying that even if the war in Ukraine stops, Putin will never stop. He might move to take Moldova, or Georgia, and maybe even try to attack the Baltic states, even though they’re members of NATO. I think that there’s good reason for that speculation, because increasing military expenses and modernizing the army will repurpose the economy.
“Russia will very soon become a threat to the world, because all the weapons have to be used. We can see it militarizing quickly, and it has gained enormous experience in Ukraine.”
So now, Zelensky and the Ukrainians have demonstrated to everyone, through their actions in Kursk and elsewhere, what they’d be able to do if they had the weapons and the freedom to do it. “Just in the last two weeks, Ukraine used long-rage drones to hit a major military Russian stockpile, far away from the battlefield. They exploded three major arsenals that held tens of thousands of tons of explosives. And a few days ago, they attacked the major logistical hub inside Russia, in the Krasnodar region, and they claimed to have destroyed more than 200 ballistic missiles that the Russians recently received from Iran.
“They used long-range drones that they designed and assembled themselves, not military equipment from the West. They demonstrated their ability to hit Russia inside its territory. The Ukrainians are prepared to show the military and political leadership in the West ‘Look, we don’t have long-range missiles, but we can hit targets inside Russian territories. If we would have a little more capacity, we could stop Putin. We could at least stop the supply of missiles and artillery shells inside Russia.
“We can do it if you give us missiles. We can do it if you give us permission to fight.”
So it is very risky, Mr. Smukler said. Anything, including World War III, could happen. And there are not a lot of good options.
Mr. Smukler quoted a statistic that the Wall Street Journal just published. Experts say that the number of casualties — fatalities or serious injuries — from both sides are about one million people. That’s the largest number of casualties during a conflict since World War II, and it is a staggering number of people.
Oh, and there’s something else. Also grim, of course.
Ukraine is trying to erase the red lines — but so is Putin.
Recently, the Russian strongman took a trip to Mongolia.
“Mongolia is a member of the International Criminal Court, and there is a warrant out for Putin’s arrest,” Mr. Smukler said; it was issued in 2023, for a war crime — deporting Ukrainian children and transporting them to Russia. Basically, he stole them from their parents.
“But Putin traveled safely to Mongolia, and he returned home safely. No one tried to arrest him. People say, okay, things like that can happen. Every country can do whatever they want with the ruling. But it showed me that the International Criminal Court is so devalued that it is a toothless organization. If any government can violate its orders, why does it still exist? Who needs it?
“It’s the same with the United Nations. I can say that Russia is violating every rule, every resolution of the U.N.’s Security Council, because it received millions of artillery shells from North Korea and ballistic missiles from Iran. Nobody is allowed to buy or receive any weaponry or military equipment from those two countries. Russia is openly violating that resolution, demonstrating that the United Nations’ role in the modern world is diminished.
“It’s demonstrating to us that the world today is existing without rules. And that is a very dangerous thing.”
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